Vaccine

Vaccine: timeline of key events

Date

Event

People

Places

Jenner was an English physician who helped pioneer the smallpox vaccine based on his hypothesis that the pus in blisters milkmaids received from cowpox protected them from smallpox. To test out his theory in 1796 he inoculated the 8 year old son of his gardener with pus taken from the cowpox blisters of a local milkmaid. While the boy suffered a fever he showed no sign of infection with smallpox. Jenner then injected the child with smallpox material, a common method of immunisation at the time, known as variolation. Again he showed no sign of infection. Following this, Jenner tested the same technique in 23 further people. Based on his success, in 1840 the British government outlawed variolation and provided Jenner's method for free to prevent smallpox. Jenner's work laid the foundation for immunisation as a method for preventing disease and for contemporary discoveries in immunology. 1749-05-17T00:00:00+0000

17 May 1749

Edward Jenner was born in Berkeley, United Kingdom

Jenner

Berkeley, United Kingdom

Edward Jenner, English physician, inoculated a child with material taken from cowpox pustles to protect him from smallpox. 1797-01-01T00:00:00+0000

1797

First smallpox vaccination

Jenner

Jenner was an English physician who helped pioneer the smallpox vaccine based on his hypothesis that the pus in blisters milkmaids received from cowpox protected them from smallpox. To test out his theory in 1796 he inoculated the 8 year old son of his gardener with pus taken from the cowpox blisters of a local milkmaid. While the boy suffered a fever he showed now sign of infection with smallpox. Jenner then injected the child with smallpox material, a common method of immunisation at the time, known as variolation. Again he showed no sign of infection. Jenner then tested out the same technique in 23 further people. Based on his success, in 1840 the British government decided to outlaw variolation and instead provide Jenner's method for free to prevent smallpox. Jenner's work laid the foundation for immunisation as a method for preventing disease and for contemporary discoveries in immunology. 1823-01-26T00:00:00+0000

26 Jan 1823

Edward Jenner died

Jenner

Nicolle was a French bacteriologist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1903 for identifying lice as the transmission vector for epidemic typhus and by working how tick fever is transmitted. He also helped discover the parasite responsible for toxoplasmosis, a common infection that is usually harmless but can cause serious problems in some people. Nicolle also developed a vaccine for Malta fever, a disease now called brucellosis.
1866-09-21T00:00:00+0000

21 Sep 1866

Charles J H Nicolle was born in Rouen, France

Nicolle

A physician and bacteriologist, Zinsser isolated the bacterium that causes typhus and developed a protective vaccine against it. In 1935 he published the book 'Rats, Live and History' in which he recounted the effects of typhus on mankind and the efforts to eradicate it. In the book he argued that disease was responsible for more deaths than war. 1878-11-17T00:00:00+0000

Louis Pasteur successfully tested his rabies vaccine on a nine year old boy who had been bitten by a rabid dog.1885-07-06T00:00:00+0000

1885

First rabies vaccine tested

Pasteur

Pasteur Institute

Goodpasture developed a method of culturing viruses in chicken embryos and fertilized chicken eggs. Before this viruses were grown in living tissues which could be contaminated by bacteria. Goodpasture's method laid the foundation for the development of vaccines for smallpox, yellow fever, typhus and chicken pox.1886-10-17T00:00:00+0000

17 Oct 1886

Ernest Goodpasture was born Clarksville, TN, USA

Goodpasture

Harvard University

Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist who is best known for inventing a sterilisation method for slowing down the development of microbes in milk and wine, a process now called pasteurisation. He also made significant breakthroughs in understanding the causes and prevention of bacterial diseases. His work was instrumental in helping to reduce the mortality rate from puerperal fever, a major cause of death for women in childbirth in the 19th century. Pasteur also pioneered the first rabies vaccine.1895-09-28T00:00:00+0000

28 Sep 1895

Louis Pasteur died

Pasteur

Pasteur Institute

Enders shared the 1954 Nobel Prize for helping to develop a technique to grow the poliomyeltitis virus in various types of tissue culture. This he achieved with colleagues Thomas Weller and Fredric Robbins in 1949. Their technique paved the way for Jonas Salk's development of a vaccine against polio. Enders is also renowned for having helped pioneer the first measles vaccine.
1897-02-10T00:00:00+0000

10 Feb 1897

John F Enders was born West Hartford, CT, USA

Enders

Children's Hospital Boston

Wyckoff was a major pioneer of x-ray crystallography of bacteria. He helped develop a high-speed centrifuge for segregating microscopic and submicroscopic material to determine the sizes and molecular weights of small particles. In addition he purified the virus that causes equine encephalomyelitis which laid the foundation for the development of a vaccine to combat an epidemic of the disease in horses. His work in this field enabled him to create a vaccine against epidemic typhus for use in World War II. 1897-08-09T00:00:00+0000

9 Aug 1897

Ralph W G Wyckoff was born in Geneva, NY, USA

Wyckoff

Rockefeller University, University of Michigan, University of Arizona

Theiler was a physician who specialised in infectious diseases. He is best known for helping to show that yellow fever is caused by a virus and his development of a safe and effective vaccine against the disease. This work he did in the 1930s while based at the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation. His first vaccine was used by the French government to protect the residents of French territories in Western Africa. The second, an improved version that was launched in Brazil in 1938. Over 400 million doses of this vaccine was given out to people over the next 60 years. Theiler was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1951 for his yellow fever vaccine. 1899-01-30T00:00:00+0000

30 Jan 1899

Max Theiler was born in Pretoria, South Africa

Theiler

Pretoria, South Africa

Stanley was a biochemist and virologist. In 1935 he managed to crystalise the tobacco virus, the causative agent of plant disease. This was a major breakthrough because prior to this no scientists had succeeded in finding out what viruses were. His work laid the foundation for other scientists, using x-ray diffraction, to work out the precise molecular structures and reproduction process of several viruses. During World War II he managed to purify several of the most common influenza viruses and developed a vaccine that was partly effective. In 1946 he shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the 'preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in a pure form.'1904-08-16T00:00:00+0000

16 Aug 1904

Wendell M Stanley was born in Ridgeville IN, USA

Stanley

Rockefeller Institute

Sterne pioneered a vaccine against anthrax in 1935 which effectively wiped out the disease. He used Pasteur's methods to develop the vaccine while based at Onderstepoort Veterinary Research Institute, north of Pretoria, in South Africa. His method remains the mainstay for the production of anthrax vaccines for livestock today. In addition to the vaccine he developed bacterial culture methods for both anthrax and botulism and his work laid the foundation for a number of highly successful veterinary and animal vaccines.1905-06-01T00:00:00+0000

1 Jun 1905

Max Sterne was born in Trieste, Austria

Sterne

Onderstepoort Veterinary Research Institute

A medical researcher and virologist, Salk pioneered the first safe and effective polio vaccine. Introduced in 1955, Salk's vaccine helped curb one of the most frightening public health diseases in the world. Over 1,800,000 school children took part in the trial to test his vaccine. His vaccine used killed virus rather than weakened forms of the strain of polio used by Sabin to develop another vaccine against the disease. Salk refused to patent his vaccine and made his technique as widely available as possible. His polio vaccine is now on the World Health Organisation's List of Essential Medicine.1914-10-28T00:00:00+0000

28 Oct 1914

Jonas Salk was born in New York City, USA

Salk

University of Pittsburgh

Robbins was a paediatrician and virologist who made his name in 1941 by helping to develop a tissue culture technique to grow the polio virus, one of the most feared diseases at the time. The method involved the growth of the virus using a mixture of human embryonic skin and muscle tissue. It provided an important step towards the development of a vaccine against polio. The tissue culture technique also helped scientists discover new respiratory viruses and paved the way to culturing the measles virus to make a vaccine against it. Robbins shared the 1954 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work.1916-08-25T00:00:00+0000

25 Aug 1916

Frederick Chapman Robbins was born in Auburn AL, USA

Robbins

Western Reserve University

A virologist, Koprowski invented the world's first effective live polio vaccine. This he did while at Lederle Laboratories. He developed the vaccine by attentuating the virus in brain cells of a cotton rat. He injected the vaccine into himself in January 1948. The vaccine had the advantage that it entered the intestinal tract directly and provided long-lasting immunity. With a decade the vaccine had been adopted on four continents. Koprowski went on to become the director of the Wistar Institute where in the 1960s he led efforts to improve the rabies vaccine. He subsequently became the first scientist, together with colleagues, to hold a patent for monoclonal antibodies. Born to Jewish parents, Koprowski was forced to flee Poland in 1939 after Germany invaded the country. 1916-12-05T00:00:00+0000

The vaccine was developed by Alexis Carel with Tom Rivers. It was made from vaccinia, or cowpox virus, collected from calf lymph fluid. The vaccine did not prove successful as it did not provide sufficient protection against smallpox, but it showed a way of developing safer vaccines by growing the virus in tissue culture. The technique was published in A Carrel, TM Rivers, 'La Fabrication du vaccin in vitro', Comptes Rendus Soc Biol, 96 (1927), 848. One of the advantages with the new method was that the vaccine had fewer side effects and did not leave a scar after vaccination. 1927-01-01T00:00:00+0000

1927

First viral vaccine developed

Carrel, Rivers

Rockefeller University

Falkow was a microbiologist who made his scientific mark by showing how bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics. During the 1960s he demonstrated that bacteria could could acquire resistance by swapping genetic material via plasmids, small microbial DNA molecules. Thereafter he focused his attention on how pathogens cause disease and in 1985 helped to identify a single genetic locus in Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, a Gram-negative bacteria, that accounts for its ability to infect cultured animal cells. He later showed that a sub-type of E. coli caused a life-threatening diarrhoea prevalent in many low-income countries. Known as the founder of molecular pathogenesis, Falkow's work paved the way to the development of new vaccines, including for whooping cough. He also helped to devise a uniform nomenclature for bacterial plasmids1934-01-24T00:00:00+0000

24 Jan 1934

Stanley Falkow was born in Albany, New York, USA

Falkow

Georgetown University School of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Stanford University

Nicolle was a French bacteriologist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1903 for identifying lice as the transmission vector for epidemic typhus and by working how tick fever is transmitted. He also helped discover the parasite responsible for toxoplasmosis, a common infection that is usually harmless but can cause serious problems in some people. Nicolle also developed a vaccine for Malta fever, a disease now called brucellosis.1936-02-28T00:00:00+0000

28 Feb 1936

Charles J H Nicolle died

Nicolle

An American physician and bacteriologist, Zinsser isolated the bacterium that causes typhus and developed a protective vaccine against it. In 1935 he published the book 'Rats, Live and History' in which he recounted the effects of typhus on mankind and the efforts to eradicate it. In the book he argued that disease was responsible for more deaths than war.1940-09-04T00:00:00+0000

4 Sep 1940

Hans Zinsser died

Zinsser

Columbia University, Stanford University, Harvard University

The breakthrough was made by Hubert Loring and Carlton Schwerdt. They managed to isolate the virus with 80% purity. The work paved the way for the team to create the first vaccine in August 1947. Schwerdt continued to improve the technique and by 1953 had managed to isolate 100% pure polio virus with Bachrach Howard, which paved the way for Jonas Salk to create a safe vaccine in 1955. 1947-01-10T00:00:00+0000

10 Jan 1947

First time polio virus was isolated

Loring, Schwerdt

Stanford University

The work was carried out by John Enders, Thomas Huckle Weller ad Frederick Chapman Robbins. They published their achievement in TH Weller, FC Robbins, JH Enders, 'Cultivation of poliomyelitis virus in cultures of human foreskin and embryonic tissues', Science, 109/2822 (1949), 85-7. The work paved the way for the two kinds of effective poliovirus vaccine, the inactivated poliovirus vaccine of Jonas E. Salk and the live oral polio vaccine of Albert B. Sabin. The three scientists received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1954. 1949-01-28T00:00:00+0000

28 Jan 1949

Polio virus successfully grown on human embryonic cells in culture

Enders, Weller, Robbins

Boston Children's Hospital

The first polio vaccine, developed by Jonas Salk, was tested on children from Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. Nearly 2 million children in 44 states were tested. The trial showed the vaccine to be effective. The vaccine radically reduced the number of polio victims around the world.1954-02-23T00:00:00+0000

23 Feb 1954

Salk polio vaccine trial begun

Salk

University of Pittsburgh

Goodpasture developed a method of culturing viruses in chicken embryos and fertilized chicken eggs. Before this viruses were grown in living tissues which could be contaminated by bacteria. Goodpasture's method laid the foundation for the development of vaccines for smallpox, yellow fever, typhus and chicken pox.1960-09-20T00:00:00+0000

20 Sep 1960

Ernest Goodpasture died

Goodpasture

Harvard University

Created by Leonard Hayflick and Paul S Moorhead.1962-01-01T00:00:00+0000

Developed by Samuel Katz and John F Enders, the vaccine would later be incorporated into the MMR, a combination vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella.1963-01-01T00:00:00+0000

1963 - 1963

Development of first attentuated measles virus vaccine

Enders, Katz

The vaccine was made by Maurice Hilleman using material taken from his daughter, Jeryl Lynn, when she suffered measles. The Jeryl strain of the mumps vaccine is still in use today and used in the MMR vaccine.1963-01-01T00:00:00+0000

1963

Creation of first vaccine against mumps

Hilleman

Merck & Co

The vaccine, RA27/3 had been developed by a team headed by Stanley Plotkin.1969-01-01T00:00:00+0000

1969 - 1970

First license approved in US and Europe for vaccine against rubella (German measles)

Stanley was an American biochemist and virologist. In 1935 he managed to crystalise the tobacco virus, the causative agent of plant disease. This was a major breakthrough because prior to this no scientists had succeeded in finding out what viruses were. His work laid the foundation for other scientists, using x-ray diffraction, to work out the precise molecular structures and reproduction process of several viruses. During World War II he managed to purify several of the most common influenza viruses and developed a vaccine that was partly effective. In 1946 he shared the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the 'preparation of enzymes and virus proteins in a pure form.' 1971-06-15T00:00:00+0000

15 Jun 1971

Wendell M Stanley died

Stanley

Rockefeller Institute

Theiler was a South African trained physician who specialised in infectious diseases. He is best known for helping to show that yellow fever is caused by a virus and his development of a safe and effective vaccine against the disease. This work he did in the 1930s while based at the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation. His first vaccine was used by the French government to protect the residents of French territories in Western Africa. The second, an improved version that was launched in Brazil in 1938. Over 400 million doses of this vaccine was given out to people over the next 60 years. Theiler was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1951 for his yellow fever vaccine. 1972-08-11T00:00:00+0000

Conducted among 1,083 gay men in New York. Gay men were ten times more likely to get hepatitis B than the normal population. Men injected with the vaccine were found to be 75% less likely to get hepatitis B than those who didn't get the vaccine. The trial was done by Wolf Szmuness at New York Medical Center using the vaccine produced by Hilleman at Merck. 1978-01-01T00:00:00+0000

1978 - 1980

First clinical trials with plasma vaccine against hepatitis B

Szmuness, Hilleman

New York Medical Center

The vaccine was developed by Alfred Prince in partnership with John Vnek. Together they devised easier and less expensive purification steps than those used by Merck. The new vaccine required a tenth of the dose than Merck's vaccine. All these measures helped reduce the cost of the vaccine, which was 50 cents per dose. This compared with $90 to $100 for 3 doses of the Merck plasma vaccine. The low cost vaccine was licensed to Cheil Division of Samsung, Korea, Wuhan Institute in China and the Ministry of Healthy in Burma. 1978-01-01T00:00:00+0000

1978 - 1986

Low-cost plasma hepatitis B vaccine developed

Prince, Vnek

New York Blood Center

The patent was filed on the basis of work undertaken by Kenneth Murray. 1978-12-22T00:00:00+0000

The research was funded by Merck with the aim of developing a recombinant vaccine against hepatitis B. It was published in P Valenzuela, P Gray, M Quiroga, J Zaldivar, H M Goodman, WJ Rutter, 'Nucleotide sequence of the gene coding for the major protein of hepatitis B virus surface antigen', Nature, 280/5725 (1979), 815e819.1979-08-30T00:00:00+0000

30 Aug 1979

UCSF scientists announced the successful cloning and expression of HBsAg in Escherichia coli

The vaccines were made with HBsAg purified from plasma of people with chronic hepatitis B. The vaccines were Hevac B Pasteur - made by Merieux and the Pasteur Institute and Hepatavax made by Maurice Hilleman at Merck.1982-01-01T00:00:00+0000

1982

First plasma vaccines against hepatitis B licensed for market in US and Europe

An American microbiologist, Enders shared the 1954 Nobel Prize for helping to develop a technique to grow the poliomyeltitis virus in various types of tissue culture. This he achieved with colleagues Thomas Weller and Fredric Robbins in 1949. Their technique paved the way for Jonas Salk's development of a vaccine against polio. Enders is also renowned for having helped pioneer the first measles vaccine. 1985-09-08T00:00:00+0000

8 Sep 1985

John F Enders died

Enders

Children's Hospital Boston

The vaccine, Hepatabox, was developed by Green Cross using Prince and Vnek's technique. 1986-01-01T00:00:00+0000

1986

Low-cost plasma vaccine against hepatitis B approved in Indonesia

The vaccine was first approved in West Germany, in May, and then in the US in July. The vaccine was regarded as a breakthrough because it was made from a genetically engineered sub-particle of the virus. This made it much safer than the original vaccine which used the virus sub-particle sourced from the blood of hepatitis B sufferers. The vaccine heralded a new era for the production of vaccines and is a major weapon against one of the most infectious diseases. 1986-05-01T00:00:00+0000

1986

First genetically engineered vaccine against hepatitis B approved

Scolnick

Merck

HepataxinB was developed by Cheil Sugar using the technique licensed from Alfred Prince and John Vnek.1986-11-01T00:00:00+0000

The technology was developed at Merck's plant in Montgomery County, Philadelphia. The deal was initiated by Roy Vagelos, Merck's CEO. The aim was to help China deal with its major hepatitis B problem.1989-01-01T00:00:00+0000

1989

Merck sold hepatitis B vaccination manufacturing technology to Chinese government for $7million

Wyckoff was a major pioneer of x-ray crystallography of bacteria. He helped develop a high-speed centrifuge for segregating microscopic and submicroscopic material to determine the sizes and molecular weights of small particles. In addition he purified the virus that causes equine encephalomyelitis which laid the foundation for the development of a vaccine to combat an epidemic of the disease in horses. His work in this field enabled him to create a vaccine against epidemic typhus for use in World War II.1994-11-03T00:00:00+0000

3 Nov 1994

Ralph W G Wyckoff died

Wyckoff

University of Michigan, University of Arizona

Developed by William Wunner at the Wistar Institute1995-01-01T00:00:00+0000

A medical researcher and virologist, Salk pioneered the first safe and effective polio vaccine. Introduced in 1955, Salk's vaccine helped curb one of the most frightening public health diseases in the world. Over 1,800,000 school children took part in the trial to test his vaccine. His vaccine used killed virus rather than weakened forms of the strain of polio used by Sabin to develop another vaccine against the disease. Salk refused to patent his vaccine and made his technique as widely available as possible. His polio vaccine is now on the World Health Organisation's List of Essential Medicine. 1995-06-23T00:00:00+0000

23 Jun 1995

Jonas Salk died

Salk

University of Pittsburgh

Sterne pioneered a vaccine against anthrax in 1935 which effectively wiped out the disease. He used Pasteur's methods to develop the vaccine while based at Onderstepoort Veterinary Research Institute, north of Pretoria, in South Africa. His method remains the mainstay for the production of anthrax vaccines for livestock today. In addition to the vaccine he developed bacterial culture methods for both anthrax and botulism and his work laid the foundation for a number of highly successful veterinary and animal vaccines. 1997-02-26T00:00:00+0000

WHO recorded that 126 (66%) of its 191 member states had universal infant or childhood hepatitis B vaccination programmes

2001-01-01T00:00:00+0000

2001

Hepatitis B vaccine cost US$0.30 per dose

This included 6 member states that had policies for vaccinating adolescents. Of the 89 member states with historically high prevalences of chronic hepatitis B infection, 64 (72%) had adopted universal infant hepatitis B vaccination.2003-05-01T00:00:00+0000

May 2003

WHO recorded that 151 (79%) of 192 member states had adopted universal childhood hepatitis B vaccination programmes

2003-05-01T00:00:00+0000

May 2003

GAVI/VF reported that 48 (64%) of poor countries eligible for their support had received funding to introduce hepatitits B vaccine

Robbins was an American paediatrician and virologist who made his name in 1941 by helping to develop a tissue culture technique to grow the polio virus, one of the most feared diseases at the time. The method involved the growth of the virus using a mixture of human embryonic skin and muscle tissue. It provided an important step towards the development of a vaccine against polio. The tissue culture technique also helped scientists discover new respiratory viruses and paved the way to being able to culture the measles virus to make a vaccine against it. Robbins shared the 1954 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his work. 2003-08-04T00:00:00+0000

4 Aug 2003

Frederick Chapman Robbins died

Robbins

Western Reserve University

The vaccine RotaTeq took 25 years to develop. It was developed by Stanley Plotkin, H Fred Clark and Paul Offit.2006-01-01T00:00:00+0000

A Polish born virologist, Koprowski invented the world's first effective live polio vaccine. This he did while at Lederle Laboratories. He developed the vaccine by attentuating the virus in brain cells of a cotton rat. He injected the vaccine into himself in January 1948. The vaccine had the advantage that it entered the intestinal tract directly and provided long-lasting immunity. With a decade the vaccine had been adopted on four continents. Koprowski went on to become the director of the Wistar Institute where in the 1960s he led efforts to improve the rabies vaccine. He subsequently became the first scientist, together with colleagues, to hold a patent for monoclonal antibodies. Born to Jewish parents, Koprowski was forced to flee Poland in 1939 after Germany invaded the country. 2013-11-13T00:00:00+0000

Vaccine developed by David Weiner together with collaborators at Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc., GeneOne Life Science, Inc., National Microbiology Laboratory at the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the University of Pennsylvania.2016-06-23T00:00:00+0000

23 Jun 2016

FDA approved first clinical trial for zika virus vaccine

Weiner

Wistar Institute, University of Pennsylvania, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, GeneOne Life Science, Public Health Agency of Canada

2017-08-01T00:00:00+0000

August 2017

UK, one of the last countries in Europe, rolled out hepatitis B vaccination programme for infants

World Hepatitis Alliance,' Study shows universal vaccination has wiped out hepatitis B and associated liver cancer in Alaska's young people', MedicalXpress, August 10 2017. The study was carried out by Brian McMahon and colleagues at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium (ANTHC) Hepatitis Program. The results was reported to the World Indigenous Peoples' Conference on Viral Hepatitis in Anchorage, Alaska. 2017-08-08T00:00:00+0000

8 Aug 2017

Universal hepatitis B vaccination introduced for all newborns in 1980s reported to have wiped out hepatitis B infection and associated liver cancer cases in Alaskan indigenous population

The vaccine was developed by Dynavax2017-11-01T00:00:00+0000

November 2017

FDA approved a two-dose hepatitis B vaccine for use in adults aged 18 and over

Dynavax

17 May 1749

Edward Jenner was born in Berkeley, United Kingdom

1797

First smallpox vaccination

26 Jan 1823

Edward Jenner died

21 Sep 1866

Charles J H Nicolle was born in Rouen, France

17 Nov 1878

Hans Zinsser was born in New York City, USA

1879

Chicken cholera vaccine developed

1885

First rabies vaccine tested

17 Oct 1886

Ernest Goodpasture was born Clarksville, TN, USA

28 Sep 1895

Louis Pasteur died

10 Feb 1897

John F Enders was born West Hartford, CT, USA

9 Aug 1897

Ralph W G Wyckoff was born in Geneva, NY, USA

30 Jan 1899

Max Theiler was born in Pretoria, South Africa

16 Aug 1904

Wendell M Stanley was born in Ridgeville IN, USA

1 Jun 1905

Max Sterne was born in Trieste, Austria

28 Oct 1914

Jonas Salk was born in New York City, USA

25 Aug 1916

Frederick Chapman Robbins was born in Auburn AL, USA

5 Dec 1916

Hilary Koprowski was born in Warsaw, Poland

1927

First viral vaccine developed

24 Jan 1934

Stanley Falkow was born in Albany, New York, USA

28 Feb 1936

Charles J H Nicolle died

4 Sep 1940

Hans Zinsser died

10 Jan 1947

First time polio virus was isolated

28 Jan 1949

Polio virus successfully grown on human embryonic cells in culture

23 Feb 1954

Salk polio vaccine trial begun

20 Sep 1960

Ernest Goodpasture died

1962

WI-38 cell line developed - important to development of vaccines

1963 - 1963

Development of first attentuated measles virus vaccine

1963

Creation of first vaccine against mumps

1969 - 1970

First license approved in US and Europe for vaccine against rubella (German measles)